Today, many licenses for content such as multimedia content are expressed in simple language that specifies the rights of a user with respect to a single piece of content such as a movie or other presentation. These rights typically define permitted activities such as how many times a user can play a particular piece of content, whether or not the user can copy the content, and the like. This type of simplicity does not, however, provide the type of flexibility that would be desirable in many situations.
For example, in some scenarios it would be desirable to integrate or combine multiple different pieces of content so that the content can be presented together in some fashion. Yet, one of the limitations that provides challenges in this regard, as noted above, is that many licenses define rights for only one piece of content. Consider, for example, advertising scenarios. In many instances it is desirable to provide advertising material in connection with multimedia content. That is, a user may download a particular audio/video presentation that is accompanied by an advertisement that is to be played prior to the audio/video presentation. If the user happens to be online, a suitably configured server can control what the user watches and when, in terms of watching the advertising before the audio/video presentation. However, this scenario requires the user to be online and requires a server to control how content is presented to the user.
These types of scenarios limit the number of user scenarios for consuming content. One particular limitation in this instance is associated with users who are not online. Specifically, if users are not online, then a server cannot control how the content is presented to the user. Thus, a user will be unable to consume content that they may otherwise be able to consume if they were online.